The Reservation

There was just one thing. We already had a house and we hadn't put it on the market. Despite this, we decided to a reserve the house. It cost £1,000 and if you cancelled the reservation  you would lose £200. I think we knew that this house was worth that risk.

We also decided to go with the part-exchange scheme which seemed to be handled by a third party called 'Moving Made Easy'.

The sales lady in the site office asked us some questions in order that we complete the questionnaire. The questions were:

1. Have you got your house on the market? No.
2. What do you think the current market value of your house is? We though aroun £220,000 based on neigbouring properties.
3. When was your house built? 1979.
4. Is your mortgage subject toa redemption by the bank? No.
5. How many years have you been in occupation? 5 years.
6. What is the property type? Terrace.
7. Ex-local authority? No.
8. Number of bedrooms? Two.
9. Number of receptions? One.
10. If on the market, how long and what is the price?
11. Current lender?
12. What did you pay for the property?
13. Any alterations to the property (and planning permission granted)?
14. Freehold or leasehold?

We then had to sign the questionniare to verify that it was correct. This document did belong to Moving Made Easy - the part-exchange company.

The marketing suite lady explained that someone would call me the following Monday to arrange for three valuations.

With that, we left feeling extremely excited, but a little despondent regarding the mixture of emotions - wanting the house and having a house to sell. It was that feeling where you want to be excited but you know you can't get your hopes up, but you never succeed. Nothing can overcome hope.

When we got home we focused on getting our little house into a saleable state. We'd already done a lot of work to it but there were a few things we just hadn't got round to doing. This included fitting a bespoke bath panel, bathroom light and lots of bleach! I felt quite dizzy at the end of it. It's always the way that you tend get the house just where you want it just as you sell.